Shadowmage: Book Nine Of The Spellmonger Series

by Terry Mancour

  When Tyndal entered the main hall, where once the weavers of the town met and debated whatever it was weavers felt passionate about, there was already a knot of men facing the rear of the building, where he could hear Rondal’s assault continuing.

  It seemed like a good place for a wide-area spell, and Tyndal loved those. He pulled a particular warwand from his belt, pointed it in the general vicinity of the center of the defense, and activated it. It took a moment for the spell to take effect, but when it did, it was decisive.

  The wand he’d selected for this attack was a Purkus wand, a reproduction of an old Imperial sample he’d seen at the collection at Relan Cor. It was a simple concussive blast augmented with a blinding flash, which wasn’t unusual for a warwand.

  The Purkus had the additional effect of creating a line of small incredibly sharp planes of magical force, like a hundred tiny panes of razor sharp glass. Though each pane only lasted for a moment, that was sufficient time for them to be propelled by the blast in a wide field of destruction. Wherever the invisible planes flew, they cut ruthlessly, even as the blast spun them and their victims into a whirlwind of blood and pain.

  Tyndal did not wait for the cloud of dust to dissipate as he flew into the fray. He drove his blade through one man’s shoulder while he kicked another, who was desperately trying to hold his intestines in, to the floor. He quickly reversed his step, the hours spent on the practice field informing his every move, and slashed through the neck of a third man before the ringing in his ears began to fade.

  He spared a quick glance at the far end of the hall. Rondal was standing behind his shield, using it to fend off the Rats who dared defend against his advance, while he plied his mageblade against them with both edge and spell.

  His friend’s expression was fearsome, as if he was finally allowing a deep rage to propel him. Guiltily Tyndal knew that it was the memory of a girl he hadn’t even kissed that motivated him to shove the Rats so aggressively with his shield and hack at them so viciously.

  The foe was lightly armed, mostly with knives, cudgels, chains, and a few swords and scimitars among them. They were not expecting an attack, they were quietly escorting their superiors to a business meeting.

  But they were not cowards. The Brotherhood’s recruitment and training methods, what was known of them, selected for ruthlessness, strength, and cunning, but it did not reward those who shied from a fight.

  As the dust from his first spell began to settle, Tyndal found himself face-to-face with a brute of a Rat, a full head taller than Tyndal. His face was half-covered in tattoos and scars of duels past, who was bellowing angrily, clutching one shoulder with his left hand while his right seemed perfectly capable of wielding the short, wicked-looking scimitar he’d drawn.

  Now it’s time for some warmagic, he decided, and activated the spell.

  He loved this part of the battle, when everything in the room but his own body slowed. In truth, he was the one moving more quickly, but it was so fast as to have an effect.

  He didn’t linger on his enemies, as there were too many, and the limits of the augmentation were finite. He addressed the big thug with the short blade who faced him, first, and decided that his foe’s balance and his injury was his largest weakness. He used the tip of his blade to shove the man’s slowly extending wrist up, high over his head. He didn’t even bother to disarm him – from the look of that shoulder, the sudden move was going to be excruciatingly painful enough to do that for him.

  Behind him, however, was an evil-looking man, crouched behind his fellow’s bulk, his plain brown cloak concealing a long-bladed, short-hafted axe. It was the kind one might use to hack a door to bits, Tyndal reflected as he strode to his side, or perhaps remove an appendage. Tyndal drew the man’s own dagger and plunged it deeply into his heart before he moved on.

  The third opponent within reach was rushing at Rondal with a staff – no, a spear, Tyndal realized, as the long pole produced a hidden blade at its point. As the man was facing away from him, Tyndal spared the time to carefully slice through his slowly-moving kneecaps with sharp, efficient blows of his sword.

  He could feel the limits of the speed augmentation approaching, sadly, and he knew better to push those boundaries. There was no need. Around him the guildhall was chaos, bodies and limbs and smoke hanging in the air. Figuring the best position to return to normal velocity to be was within the range of one of the more fearsome fighters, he braced the point of his sword against the largest swordsman’s chest, carefully avoiding his thick sternum, as he shifted back to normal.

  The man’s eyes flew open as his chest was transfixed suddenly and unexpectedly by steel. Tyndal had locked his knees well enough to bear the blow without collision, and by pivoting his hips the point of his blade was lined up nicely with the head of another Rat, still reeling from the blast.

  “Spreadheadth!” he whispered, an ancient word in a dialect of Old Narasi, as he mentally activated his selected enchantment. The spell within the sword manifested, and the face of the man it was pointing toward erupted in a mass of green fire that quickly consumed his screaming head.

  Indeed, the ringing in his ears was nearly gone, and he was not even breathing hard. There were only a few of the Rats left in fighting shape, he noted with satisfaction as he unsheathed his blade from the dead man’s chest.

  You all right, Ron? He asked, mind-to-mind, as he turned to face the next man, a tall swordsman who’d flung back his mantle and faced the threat like a warrior. He’d managed to get through the waves of arcane attack unhurt, he saw, and the threat of his savage sneer was matched only by the shining scimitar he held at the ready.

  Unhurt, his partner managed through the link. I think—

  There was a bright flash behind him, one that made his opponent blink – long enough for Tyndal to slap aside his blade and slash his point through his unprotected throat.

  The last man hadn’t been distracted, and he crashed into Tyndal’s left shoulder as Tyndal recovered his blow. They both tumbled to the floor, and for a brief moment of panic as his armored shoulder crunched between it and his attacker, he was worried.

  But then he found his left hand curled around the man’s throat as he struggled to bring the point of a Rat’s Tail shiv into play.

  The Rat was pale and flabby, perhaps a fighter in his youth, but whose body had fallen prey to his own success. Tyndal’s right hand was still clutched on the hilt of his blade, but he let go of the sword to use his bracer to block the slender iron spike.

  Tyndal took stock of his situation, and realized he was unhurt and, despite his supine position, not without leverage. Particularly arcane leverage. He burst into a grin, which surprised his attacker . . . but not nearly as much as the blast of shearing force that burst from the spell on his left bracer, sending the Rat’s chin into his forehead.

  Not only did the blast sting his fingers mightily, stunning them into inaction, but the shower of blood and brains that rained down over his face and chest plate did little for his appearance. He rolled to his left, allowing the mangled body to fall, and then sprang to his knees . . . and clutched his left hand.

  “Ishi’s tits, that stings!” he howled.

  You should have put a gunchron block on it, Rondal lectured, mind-to-mind.

  “Not the right time, Striker!” Tyndal shouted in return, as the last of the Rats – this one looking the most like an actual rat than the others – rushed toward him. He rolled back over the body he’d just created and grasped wildly for his blade . . . which was pinned under the body, he discovered.

  Abandoning the effort, which was hard enough with one hand, he instead drew a wand at random and brought it up to catch his attacker. Tyndal frantically tried to identify just which wand he’d drawn, but it was difficult, with blood in his eyes. By touch, it felt like his fire wand – not the best in the situation, but—

  Before he could say the mnemonic, the Rat dropped, his iron shiv falling to the floor with a ring, when the edge of Rondal�
��s round shield bashed in the back of his skull.

  “Would you like a towel?” Rondal asked, helpfully, as he critically surveyed Tyndal.

  “I would have gotten him,” Tyndal insisted, getting to his knees.

  “In due time,” Rondal agreed, as he looked around at the damage. “I have no doubt it would have been a spirited contest.”

  “I thought he did rather poorly,” came a new voice. A familiar voice. Atopol, dressed in a matte black mantle that swallowed the light around it, appeared from the shadows.

  “Damn it, how do you do that?” Rondal demanded.

  “You were here the whole time?” Tyndal asked.

  “I’ve been watching you since you left the docks,” the young shadowmage agreed, with a smile. “I thought I’d tag along, and see how real knights magi work.”

  “And your verdict?” Rondal asked, as he helped push the body off of Tyndal’s blade for him.

  “Hysterical!” Atopol said, clapping mockingly. “Not that it isn’t effective, but I had no idea it was going to be so amusing!”

  Tyndal was tempted to glare at the purple-eyed thief, but he grinned instead. It was good to see him again. Atopol might be as sneaky as sin, but he was good-natured and – for a thief – honorable.

  “You might have lent a hand,” Tyndal said, wiping his eyes with a tablecloth, when Rondal’s offer of a towel proved faithless. “There were enough for everyone.”

  “I didn’t want to get in your way,” he shrugged.

  “How did you even know we were even here?” Tyndal asked.

  “When you came over the ridges, our informants let us know. When we heard what happened to that old guildhall, we reasoned the two were connected. When we tried to figure out where you might go next, we guessed.”

  “We almost didn’t go here, you know,” Rondal said, handing Tyndal’s mageblade back to him to clean. “We nearly went back to Solashaven.”

  “In which case my sister would have met you,” Atopol said with a chuckle. “Were you planning on slaughtering the entire hall, or did you just want to do the first floor tonight?”

  “We might as well finish,” Rondal shrugged, pulling his shield back over his arm. “Do try to hang back, this time, Atopol,” he suggested, adjusting the strap on his helmet. “It could get dangerous.”

  “We wouldn’t want you to get hurt,” Tyndal agreed, with mocking sympathy.

  “I just want to see the second act,” Atopol said, bowing toward the stairs, graciously.

  As the boys reached the bottom of the stairs, a shout came from above.

  “Yumruck! Demys! What’s going on down there?” it asked, cautiously.

  “You’re being raided!” Rondal called back, with authority.

  “But we paid our fee!” wailed another voice.

  “Shut up! Who in nine hells are you?” demanded the authoritative voice.

  “We’re the raiders!” Tyndal shouted back.

  “Well, that’s fucking obvious!” barked the voice, irritated. “Who are you?”

  “Oh. The Estasi Order of Knights Magi!” Tyndal shouted back.

  “Who?”

  “They’re new!” Atopol yelled, helpfully.

  “Why the hell are you raiding us?” the man asked, confused.

  “Bloody vengeance for a heinous crime!” Tyndal shouted defiantly.

  “Oh. Well . . . shit,” the man gasped. “Did I do it?”

  “No, a Rat named Rellin Pratt did it,” Rondal conceded.

  “Pratt? Pratt the Brat? That mage?” asked the voice, incredulously. “I just got hit because of that pretentious little snot?”

  “He said you helped him,” Tyndal said, after a moment’s pause. “Uh, who are you again?”

  “I’m Uzhas. This is my place.”

  “Uzhas? No colorful nickname?” Rondal asked, shrugging.

  “Uzhas the I’m Going To Beat Your Fucking Teeth In. Happy?”

  “Well, thanks to Pratt, Master Uzhas, you got hit. And you won’t be the last,” Rondal declared. “The moment you come downstairs, we’re going to have to kill you.”

  “What if I pay you not to?” Uzhas asked, after a moment’s consideration.

  “We are Knights Magi of the—” Rondal began to respond, angrily.

  “Striker! Hold on!” Tyndal said, stopping his partner. “Master Uzhas, while I’m certain you are a despicable killer and thug, we actually bear you no personal ill will. And we are quite new to the business of bloody vengeance. Under the circumstances, we might be willing to extend a little chivalric mercy, if you’re feeling in a bargaining mood.”

  “Shit! You wiped out like a dozen of my guys! I’m feeling overwhelmingly generous,” the voice said, sarcastically. “If we come down, can we parlay before we get killed? I hate all this yelling.”

  “As long as you understand we still reserve the right to kill you later,” advised Rondal.

  “Yeah, I figured. Two coming down,” he called.

  Tyn, there’s three of them, up there, Lorcus assured him. I’m looking right at them through Rondal’s creature.

  “Why don’t you have all of you join us?” Tyndal countered.

  “Fine! Three coming down! Don’t kill us!”

  “What are you playing at?” whispered Rondal, harshly.

  “We let the goblin go, because he might be useful,” reasoned Tyndal. “Let’s see what we can do with a rat.”

  “The goblin might be useful!” Rondal said, clearly unhappy at the idea of letting any of them go.

  They were interrupted when the three remaining Rats came down the stairs, hands in the air. Their leader was the shortest, but by no means the smallest. He was a barrel-chested man with a wide, unshaven face, and arms as thick as a smith’s. His companions looked far less confident, and a lot more frightened . . . particularly when they saw the bodies lying all over the guildhall floor.

  “I’m Uzhas,” the one in the center said. “What do you want?”

  “We want Rellin Pratt dead,” Tyndal said, flatly, “and the entire Brotherhood fallen.”

  “Right now, I want Pratt dead a lot more,” grunted the crimelord, looking around at his ruined hall, the bodies and the blood. “You two did all this?” he asked, surprised.

  Tyndal was about to mention the third party, but suddenly Atopol was nowhere to be seen.

  “Yes,” Tyndal said. “Just the two of us. There was only one nest of rats, so . . .”

  “Impressive,” admitted Uzhas. “That big guy, there? He killed four men with his bare hands, once. With three stab wounds. By himself.”

  “He was in our way,” Rondal said, humorlessly.

  “Knights magi . . . you boys are magi?”

  “And knights,” Tyndal insisted. “We’re new. But I believe we were discussing a bargain . . .”

  “You want Pratt dead? I can tell you where he lives. Or did, the last time I saw him.”

  “That’s a start,” Rondal admitted, grudgingly.

  “We also want everything upstairs,” Tyndal pressed. “All the records. All the gold.”

  “It’s yours, if it means my life,” shrugged the crimelord.

  That shook one of his companions. “Uzhas, if you—”

  “Shut up!” ordered the man. “I’m trying to save our lives, here! Just look at this place! Those are your fucking bodyguards! They went through them like a rotten cod!

  “You want the records? They’re yours. Gold, too. You want Pratt? Last year he was running his crew out of a galleon called the Venjanca. Old Remeran ship he took at sea, which is one of the few ways, by tradition, you can get to lead your own crew. So he thinks he’s a real pirate, now,” Uzhas said, mockingly. “Amateur!”

  “Why so quick to sell him out?” asked Tyndal, suspiciously.

  “Apart from him bringing this trouble to my door?” scowled the gangster. “And saving my life? He’s an arrogant asshole. Thinks he should be on the council just because his ancestors were somebody important, once. He doesn’t understand t
he Brotherhood,” he growled, condemningly. “You gotta do your time, before you get to that rank. You need experience, not just a big mast. No respect.”

  “Your respect for tradition is admirable,” Rondal agreed, evenly. “And I would consider sparing the lives of at least one of you, to whisper the tale in the proper ear. But three?”

  “Well,” Uzhas, said, fingering his scraggly chin, “I see your point, lads. I think if we can talk about this calmly and rationally— “

  Before he finished his thought he drew two short knives from his sleeves and plunged one into the throat of the man on his left, and one down through the shoulder and into the chest of the man on his right. The knives were sheathed before the bodies hit the floor. “That should simplify things, then,” he said, with a sigh.